Seras V Predator
by Keith B. Real
Summary: London is gripped by a heatwave and something that's not a vampire is killing people.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Just so no one thinks there's a plot hole, I've determined that Seras gives off a certain amount of body heat. Not as much as a human, but she does show up on things like thermal goggles.

**Chapter One.**

A week long heat wave held London in its grasp. Seras Victoria didn't sweat, but she felt the heat all the same as she stood outside of a shabby apartment building in a rundown section of town.

A Hellsing armored personnel carrier was parked conspicuously in the middle of the street. Traffic had been blocked at either end and Hellsing was relying solely on the darkness and the fact that no one went through the slums at night to conceal their work.

Seras loaded a clip into her large rifle. A normal soldier would have had to fire it from a tri-pod, but it had been modified specially for her to shoot like a normal weapon. All the members of the attack squad were looking at her, waiting for her to take the lead.

She was sure they were looking at her figure, but that didn't matter. She had been on enough missions with the to know they were all good people and had come to trust them as she had her former colleagues in the police department.

"Right behind you, Victoria," the squad leader said. He was a young, serious man who Seras thought would rise quickly through the ranks if he didn't get killed first.

She ran up the building's cracked concrete steps to the door and kicked it down. Expecting at least a few ghouls to be near the entrance, she was surprised to find there were none. She held up her left arm and made a fist, signaling for the team behind her to wait.

The hallway that led around a corner smelled like urine and cigarette smoke. The stench of blood overlaid it, meaning they were in the right place. She went down the hall with her rifle ready. She could slaughter ghouls with her bare hands if need be, but it was messy work.

Making her way down to the end of the hall, she could smell more blood from the stairwell. Glancing behind her, she saw the rest of the squad coming up from behind, their weapons trained on the doors she had gone past.

Signaling that she was going up to the second floor, she opened the door and went into the stairwell. The worn out tile of the floor was soaked in blood, as were the old, bent wooden planks that made up the steps. Looking up, she could see where the blood had come from. Hanging from the ceiling were four naked bodies. Men from the look of it.

Going up the stairs, she saw that their nude forms were slick with blood and their heads were missing.

"What in the…" she said. The normal _modus operandi _for vampires was to kill as many people as they could, and make them into ghoul slaves. Cutting off the head made their pseudo-resurrection impossible.

Standard procedure was to check each floor, but her instinct was telling her to go up to the top. Not one to argue instinct, she ran up the stairs and entered the fifth floor where it seemed that much of the carnage had taken place.

It was clear no one really lived in the apartment building. It was nothing more than a dodgy place for drug dealers and junkies. The corpses scattered about, some without heads, were all of young men. Rough types from the look of it.

Stepping past the bodies, she walked over to a door that was open slightly. Tipping it open with her gun barrel, she stepped in front of the threshold, ready to fire. There was nothing to fire at. No ghouls, no vampires, nothing but the headless corpse of a black man sitting at the kitchen table near an open window.

Walking up to the window, she peered out. It was a long drop to the parking lot bellow. She saw what might be blood near a white van, but couldn't be sure. It was possible the vampire had gone up to the roof and while leaning out to look at how much of a job such a climb would be, she heard something move in the kitchen.

Realizing she'd been tricked, she pulled back but wasn't fast enough. Something strong and large hit her, sending her tumbling over the edge of the window sill. For two seconds Seras experienced the sensation of free fall and just as she realized how much the impact was going to hurt, she hit the pavement.

She landed on her back, tilting to the left slightly so her arm absorbed much of the impact. Her head struck the concrete, causing her to see a white flash followed by darkness.

She came to quickly, feeling that her arm was broken and she had cracked several ribs. Looking around for her rifle, she saw something drop from the fifth floor and land in a puddle of fluid near a dumpster.

There was an electric shimmer where the thing had splashed in the puddle. It traveled up, briefly revealing the shape of legs and a humanoid torso. Watching it, she saw it come towards her, barely visible. It reminded her of the heat lines coming up off a stretch of highway or over a stove.

Wincing in pain, she maneuvered herself into a crouch and pretended to be too hurt to move. She didn't know what sort of vampire could become invisible and cut the heads off human corpses, but she would have plenty of time to ask once she beat it half to death.

She heard what sounded like a sword being unsheathed and realized too late it had a weapon. Something cold and hard pierced her through the chest, knocking her into her back. Coughing up blood, she looked down to see what was protruding from between her breasts. Her blood made the nearly invisible object crackle, and she saw that it was some sort of steel spear.

The thing holding it twisted the spear, ripping arteries and muscles. She choked out a scream and grabbed the weapon, pulling on it as hard as she could.

Her efforts took the spear from the thing's grip, and she heard it growl. It was a pebbly sound, like something from a cat or a Hollywood lizard. There was another metallic sound, telling her it had drawn another weapon.

Ignoring the pain, she stood up, holding the spear up off the ground and tugged on it, hard. It tore out of her, sending blinding waves of pain through her chest and arms. With the spear out, she backed up, concentrating on the thing she could barely see.

Able to hear its footsteps, she knew it had become cautious. Armed with its spear, coated in her blood, she was vaguely aware of the attack squad calling out in the halls above, unaware of what was transpiring in back lot bellow.

It moved to her left and she stabbed at it, missing. Suddenly, she couldn't hear it and her eyes couldn't pick up its location. Something sharp and painful struck her in the right shoulder. She looked to see a metal throwing star sticking out of her arm. Gritting her teeth, she wiped a glut of blood from her chest up in her fingers and flicked it in front of her.

The effect was immediate. When her blood struck the creature, it shimmered. Able to make out its outline, she rushed forward, stabbing with the spear. It tried to sidestep her, but wasn't quick enough. The spear caught it in the upper thigh, grazing it. It growled, and Seras was distracted for a moment by the bright green blood on the end of the spear.

A red light appeared where the creature's shoulder was, making her realize its height. It was at least seven feet tall, making her wonder just what it could be before there was a bright flash from the red light, and a searing pain in her left shoulder.

She dropped the spear and suddenly felt like she had gained one-hundred kilos. Looking down on the ground, her mouth gaped when she saw her left arm lying on the ground, clutching the strange vampire's weapon.

"You…" she said, as gunfire from above rained down on the lot, sending chips of concrete flying up.

Slightly more visible than it was before, she saw it dart forward, grab her arm, along with the spear, and run off into a narrow alley between the apartment building and a wooden fence. She took two steps forward and collapsed to her knees, weakened. "My arm," she said. "Come back with my arm."

Feeling her stomach turn, she hung her head and waited for the feeling to pass. She could now hear Hellsing soldiers shouting, and didn't look up until the apartment's door to the back lot opened.

**To be continued…**


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: In case you missed the first note, I said Seras gives off just enough body heat to be seen by the Predator's thermal vision.

**Chapter Two.**

The taste of cold blood was still in her mouth, making her want to throw up. She had drank it fast; there had been no time to take it easy, as it had been nearly pumped down her throat by a medic.

More disturbing had been watching her arm grow back. Lying on a table somewhere in the Hellsing Mansion's basement, she thought the blood she had drank was coming out of her arm before she realized the black liquid was more shadow than plasma.

She wanted to look away as the shadow took the shape of her arm and solidified and changed color, but she couldn't. Once it was done, the arm looked as good as new, and felt fine. This was the worst part, as it made her wonder what the rest of her body was made of.

When it was done, she lie still on the table and examined the stone ceiling. Her eyes were able to see in the darkness, but dim lights kept the room lit, casting shadows in the damp stone corners.

Seras sat up, feeling no pain, when she felt herself being watched. Her uniform hadn't been changed. It was still ripped and covered in blood, her left sleeve was missing. "Master," she said.

"Police Girl," a low, smooth voice answered from the darkness. The shadows in the corner off to her left began to swirl into a shape. Out of the gloom stepped a tall, pale man in a red coat wearing a wide brimmed red hat. His eyes were covered by yellow tinted sunglasses.

"Rough night?" he asked.

She laid back down, letting out a groan. "I was attacked by something," she said. "I should have know something was wrong when I went in."

"Sounds interesting," he said. "Tell me more."

She was looking at the ceiling, but could easily imagine the look on her master, Alucard's, face. He loved battles and violence and wanted to hear the gory details of the ones he happened to miss out on. "The apartment complex was like any other we find vampires holed up in. Seedy. There were bodies everywhere, but none had become ghouls because all the heads had been cut off. It had strung a few up in one of the stairwells," Seras said.

"How odd," Alucard said. "Most trash vampires fancy themselves kings and enjoy making ghoul servants."

"It _was_ odd," she said. "At any rate, it got behind me and shoved me out a window. It was invisible, but not really…like a chameleon or something."

"Oh?" Alucard said. "How intriguing. I heard it used strange weapons and had green blood."

Seras let out a sigh. He had obviously been briefed by members of the team and really was just asking her for gory details. "Yes," she said. "I was hit by a throwing star, and stabbed with a spear. I cut it in the leg."

"Did you get a good look at it?"

She shook her head. "It was tall, like one of those basketball players, but not skinny. It think it might have been wearing a helmet. Either that or it had a funny shaped head."

"How did it get your arm?"

Her eyes closed and she tried to think. The battle had actually been hard to remember. "There was a flash of red from its shoulder and I felt a burning. I don't really know."

"How strange," Alucard said. She heard him move. "I'm glad to see you were able to heal. Sir Integra will wish to speak to you, I imagine," he said. "I also imagine you'll face this creature again before too long. Best prepare yourself."

Sitting back up, she saw him disappear into the dark corner from where had had come. Groaning, she swung her legs off the table and got to her feet. She needed a shower and a change of uniform.

***

Clean and with a new uniform, she was eventually summoned to the debriefing room. A day had gone by since her encounter, and as she had been the only one injured, everyone else had been debriefed.

The room was a contrast to the dark one she had woken up in, with white walls and plenty of fluorescent lighting. A white board had been marked up with red marker, and erased partially. Steel folding chairs filled the room, and she took a seat in one of the front ones.

Integra stood with her arms crossed over her chest in front of the plain podium she and the other squad commanders normally stood behind. A few strands of her long blond hair fell over the front of her olive drab uniform, and she shook them back while removing her glasses to clean the lenses with a rag from her pocket.

Putting them back on, she looked at the white board while Seras told her story, asking only a few questions. When Seras had finished, she nodded slowly. "As much as I would like to say you simply ran across a vampire with bizarre powers and motives, that simply doesn't add up. The blood sample we recovered and your description of its shape make this all very puzzling."

"Is there any word on the blood sample?" Seras asked. Being a former policewoman, she was well aware blood tests took longer than a day, but with the right priority, bits of information could be retrieved slightly faster.

"It's not human," Integra said. "There are types of medication that, when taken too liberally, can turn the blood green, but that isn't the case here. It wasn't vampire blood either, that we're sure of."

Scratching the back of her head, Seras thought about all the monster movies she had seen. Learning vampires were real had made her wonder about other creatures, and while no one had told her anything specific at Hellsing, it had been hinted that there were other creatures out there, lurking in the dark.

Seras gave up any serious effort into thinking of what it might be. Sir Integra was the monster expert, not her, and if she didn't know, then Seras didn't either. "What are we going to do?" Seras asked.

Integra fixed her blue eyes on Seras, and for a moment she thought she had annoyed her. "It will strike again," she said. "When it does, we'll move on it. It won't catch you off guard again, and you'll defeat it. Is that clear?"

Feeling as though she had been slapped, Seras sat upright. "Yes, Ma'am," she said. "I'm sorry, it won't happen again."

"It was nothing but a pack of drug dealers and lowlifes this time," Integra said. "Perhaps that was by design, and perhaps it wasn't. It's unfortunate we will have to wait for it to kill again, but let this be a lesson to always win the first time. Understood?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Seras said. She was still sitting up straight, but her eyes were off Integra.

"Alright. Dismissed."

Seras stood and tried not too walk too quickly out of the room. When she got out into the hall, her fists clenched. The weirdness of the situation had made her forget that she had been defeated, and that a monster had gotten away with killing people. Not good people, but people all the same. Integra was right, it would have to be allowed to kill again before it could be confronted, and while she hoped those people would be the same sort of lowlife as before, nothing was certain.

**To be continued… **


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three.**

A week passed and the heat continued.

Vampire attacks were now becoming a nightly occurrence, which had Hellsing and the rest of the government in an uproar. There had been three Round Table meetings in as many days, and while Seras only had to think about her nightly missions, she couldn't help but notice what was going on around her and in the newspapers.

Hellsing had managed to keep itself and the nature of the menace a secret. Seras got the distinct impression from Sir Integra's mood that the fact was not being appreciated by the Round Table and the pressure to discern the reason behind the sudden escalation in attacks was increasing steadily.

Sir Integra seemed to have forgotten all about the mysterious creature that had killed a building full of drug dealers and maimed Seras, but Seras had not. Each time she accompanied a team on a mission, sometimes two a night, she expected to encounter it again. She didn't, and dispatching a mob of ghouls along with one or two vampires became almost routine.

The discovery of the Freak Chip in the bodies of the vampires, while considered a breakthrough to Sir Integra and the Round Table, only deepened the mystery for Seras, who was still focused on the chameleon creature. She was certain there was a connected, having replayed the battle in her mind countless times. The more she thought of it, the more the thing's abilities seemed technological in nature rather than supernatural. With the Freak chips, there seemed to be a connection, but she couldn't puzzle out what it was.

***

Looking out the open door of the helicopter, Seras squinted to keep her eyes from watering in the wind. It was a dark night, made darker by their distance from London and artificial lights. She couldn't remember the name of the castle they were being sent to investigate, but she knew it was not so old that it was a complete ruin. Someone had lived in it until recently, a duke or a baron, which made it somewhat suspicious.

The castle was in the middle of a field. Behind it was a line of trees which fronted a small wooded area. The helicopter touched down in front of the castle, letting Seras and the others file out. "I've got the door," she shouted above the whir of the blades. She was carrying a large assault rifle, but her Harkonnen cannon was packed on the helicopter in case she needed it.

The castle had been converted into a home, but the front door was large and thick enough to keep out anything but Seras and police wielding a battering ram. Once her men were behind her, she kicked the door open.

Confronted by a dark corridor, she smelled blood. Her eyes quickly adjusted, and she was able to see the hallway clearly. The men behind her wore night vision goggles, and she signaled to them it was safe to follow her inside.

There was a body lying in the floor near the end of the hall by an open door. He had been coming towards the exit, Seras thought, and bent to examine him. He was dressed in a hoodie and jeans and had been slashed by something multiple times, but what killed him looked to have been a large hole burnt into his back.

"Captain," Seras said, waving Captain Garret over. He bent down on one knee next to her.

"Ma'am?"

"Look at his back," she said. "It's burnt. It's like what happened the other night, with the Chameleon Man."

All the Hellsing soldiers had all taken to calling the mysterious creature the Chameleon Man. They had been somewhat upset that the higher-ups weren't taking the incident seriously, but the number of vampire incidents kept their minds off the subject.

"Look alive," Garret said to the other. "Possible Chameleon Man."

She heard the soft clatter of weapons being adjusted in hands, and was glad to hear it. Hellsing soldiers were brave to the point of suicidal, and she sometimes felt bad about being far hardier than they were.

"I'll go in ahead, keep me covered," she said.

The door led into a living area, where the smell of blood was strongest. Bodies had been hung by their feet from the rafters. All were nude and headless young men. How they had come to be in the castle in the first place was something Investigations would puzzle out, along with perhaps why they had been hung from the ceiling.

Something thumped behind her. She turned and noticed a metallic object was sitting in the doorway. The men had seen it as well, judging by their muttering, but it was forgotten when one of them screamed.

Soon, the entire hallway was screams and gunfire. Seras ran back towards the hall and hear the metallic object at her feet beep before she realized her mistake. There was a loud crackling sound as pain shot up her body and her limbs became stiff and heavy. She fell, hard, and felt herself lose consciousness for a moment.

When she came too, she was back in the living room and being dragged. She grabbed the hands that held her and heard Captain Garret shout "It's me, it's me!"

Seras got to her feet, using Garret for balance. "What happened?" she asked.

"It got them. It got the team," Garret said. "Damned thing, what the hell is it?"

"I don't know," Seras said. "Where's my rifle?"

Garret handed her the rifle she had dropped and he had picked up. "You stepped on some kind of land mine. It set two more in the hall that I saw. You didn't step on the first one, you only got near it," Garret said.

"Watch the door," she said. "There's no way out of that hall besides the front door and that one. It'll either come through there or outside and around."

"Garret, Victoria, report," said a voice over Garret's radio.

"We under attack by the CM," Garret said. "Did you see any activity near the door, over."

"No, over," said the voice. "What's your status, over."

As Garret spoke while watching the hallway door, Seras kept her eyes on the balcony surrounding the upper floor. From what she remembered about the castle's layout, the CM, if it had gone out the front unnoticed by those in the helicopter, was likely to enter on a higher floor where it could attack from above.

"Come one, we need to get under some kind of cover," she said, tapping Garret on the back to make him follow her. She backed towards a room which turned out to be a kitchen. Seras slid a serving trolley in front of the year entrance and kept her eyes on the small windows that ran along the back above a row of sinks.

"How are we going to get out of here?" Garret asked. While gaining the kitchen, he had been informed backup was on the way to secure the perimeter, but no reinforcements would be entering the building due to the unknown booby-traps.

"We're not," Seras said. "Not without first killing that thing. "I think it wants to finish the job, so we have to lay a trap for it."

She grabbed a bucket from beneath one of the sinks and filled it with water. She filled two more before scattering the water on the floor. "What the hell are you doing?" Garret asked.

"Water mucks up its camouflage," she said, keeping a full bucket resting on a counter.

"What if it's not after us and it escaped?" Garret asked.

"Good point," she said. "Stay here. I'll try and draw it out."

She walked back into the living room, ready to shoot at movement on the upper balcony.

Sharp metal punctured her back and she was lifted up off her feet. Looking down, she saw two bloody blades that curved upward sticking out from beneath her ribs. She screamed and tried to free herself but only succeeded in tearing more flesh and scraping her rib bones over the blades.

"Victoria!" Garret shouted.

As he began firing, Seras felt her body be turned into the hail of bullets. Four of them ripped through her before Garret stopped and she was hurled through the air, into Garret. Bleeding, lying on top of Garret, she tried to roll off him but felt something else pierce her back.

Garret gasped and blood welled up in his mouth and spilled out the corners. "G-Garret," she said.

The metal object, likely the thing's spear, slid out of her. It had struck her spine and she was unable to move. She felt it grip the back of her belt and lift her up like a sack, casting her aside. She landed at an odd angle with her head cocked to the side. Out of the corner of her eye, she was able to see the creature step past Garret's corpse and onto the wet floor of the kitchen.

There was a crackling sound that ran up the creature's tall frame. She saw its arm move and heard something beep. The camouflage shut off, and she was able to see the thing clearly as it kneeled near Garret.

It was humanoid, like she had thought. It was dressed in what looked to be some sort of armor that covered its shoulders, shins, elbows, and forearms. The rest was a type of mesh netting that covered its yellowish brown skin.

The helmet it wore covered its face and was broad in the forehead and tapered into a kind of snout. The eyes were covered with a tinted material, and she felt the creature looking at her as took a blade from its utility belt and beheaded Garret.

"Bastard," she said, blood rushing out her mouth. Her spine had healed to the point where she could begin to move, but before she could rise, the thing stood abruptly and brought its foot down on her head.

**To be continued…**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four.**

She woke up in much the same way as before, with the taste of cold blood in her mouth.

This time, Sir Integra was standing over her. She did not look happy.

"I'm alive?" Seras said.

"Yes," Integra said. "But your team isn't. What the hell happened?"

Seras sat up and explained in detail everything that had happened on the mission, including the creature's appearance and the stun mines. "Why didn't it kill me?" she asked.

"I suspect it wanted you to take this back to our headquarters," Integra said, holding out her palm. She held what looked to be a long needle with a head the size and shape of a small watch battery. "It's a tracking device, we think. It's been deactivated, but we found it buried in your left buttock."

Seras turned red. "It tracked me here?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Integra said. "Or at least, that seems likely. I suspect it will strike here next."

"I'm going to kill it," Seras said. "It killed Captain Garret and the others, enough is enough."

"I agree," Integra said. "I've ordered Alucard to confront it. You're on standby. You've failed twice now, this time with casualties."

"But…"

Integra held up a hand. "We're both guilty of underestimating it. You've seen its tactics twice now. Should you encounter it a third time, use your common sense and don't be caught off guard again. It's clear the thing has more than one trick up its sleeve, but it can't have that many more left."

"Tell me I can at least patrol the compound for when it strikes," Seras said.

"If you're not out eliminating another problem, then fine," Integra said. "Understand, we cannot allow this to continue. We're understaffed and overextended. Those men you lost were irreplaceable."

Integra's words stung, but Seras held her retorts in. Integra was right, it was her job to protect her men and she had failed. When the team outside didn't report seeing the creature, she shouldn't have assumed it had slipped past them. Instead, it had slipped past Garret and her and had been in the living room the entire time.

"I have something I must attend," Integra. "Make sure you are detailed in your report. Contrary to what everyone seems to think, I've had investigators working around the clock on what this thing might be. It might interest you to know that two incidents, one in Guatemala during the eighties that involved American Special Forces, and another in Los Angeles, California during the nineties involving an LAPD officer, bear a striking resemblance to your 'Chameleon Man,'" Integra said.

"Oh? What happened?"

"A lot of dead bodies and a lot of questions," Integra said. "Lets just say we're currently talking with the CIA and we might know something soon."

"Ah," Seras said. Integra nodded and left the room, leaving Seras to wonder what she was dealing with. After seeing the thing, she was sure it wasn't a vampire. Thinking about it, words like troll and goblin entered her mind, but once it hit on alien, everything seemed to click. "Dear God," she said.

"You sound like you've thought of something, Police Girl," Alucard said, stepping out of the shadows in the corner. "What is it?"

"It's an alien. I think."

"An alien? How interesting," Alucard said. "I've never shot an alien before."

Seras sighed. She didn't consider herself the blood thirsty type and thought wanting revenge was an evil thing, but part of her was upset to know Alucard would likely be the one to put down the alien. "I'm sure you'll have fun," she said.

"What's wrong?" Alucard said. "Is something the matter?"

"It killed Garret and my team. It's beaten me twice now."

"How humiliating," Alucard said. He held his hands behind his back and was stooped forward slightly as though speaking to a child or a dog. "I'll bet you want to be the one to kill it."

She looked at him and then back at the floor. "Yes."

He began to laugh, not so much at her it seemed, but at the situation. Alucard's sense of humor unnerved her, and hearing him laugh was not pleasant. Sometimes she felt a little sorry for anyone who stood in Hellsing's way. "Well then why don't you just kill it?" Alucard asked.

"I've tried. It's like a ghost. It appears out of nowhere. It has some kind of camouflaging device and seems to be sneaky enough on its own."

Alucard didn't laugh. He stood up straight with a tiny scowl on his face. "You really are pathetic sometimes," he said.

"What?"

"You've been a Nosferatu long enough to know better. What was the first combat lesson I taught you?"

She thought back. It hadn't been that long ago, really. They were out on the target range at night. Integra was there and clearly not happy about having a second vampire in her organization. Seras had felt as though she were in a job interview only if she didn't get hired she would be killed.

"If I aim like a human, I'll only miss like they do," Seras said. "Aim like I had a third eye in my forehead."

Alucard reached out and tapped her hard between the eyes. "Simple, really," he said. "This two-bit hunter has a lot of toys designed to fool dullard prey animals. You're a vampire, a Nosferatu. You exist outside of nature, above predator and prey. This foolish thing fancies itself a tiger amongst mice, but it's really just a mangy cat that's wandered into a demon's lair. Next time, see it with your sixth sense and tear its head off."

She smiled and chuckled. "Next time…I take it you heard Sir Integra. I'm on standby. You're the one that's going to kill it."

He laughed quietly. "I've devoured more souls than you would believe. Any more and I might get fat. Why don't I let you take this one."

"But Integra ordered…"

He held up a hand and she stopped talking. "Earlier, she ordered me to destroy the creature using any and all of the powers at my disposal. You, Police Girl, are one of the many powers at my disposal and I choose to use you. As soon as I perceive the creature's presence, I'll call you and you'll come running."

"Thank you," Seras said, grinning. She stopped, suddenly ashamed. Murderous alien it might be, but she was still no monster, despite Alucard's pep talk.

"You're welcome," Alucard said, and turned around. He began walking back into the shadow, but stopped and turned his head. "A warning: It has what it wants from you, the location of your lair. The next time it defeats you, it will cut off your head as a trophy and that will be your end. As they say in baseball, three strikes and you're out."

Her hands clenched and her teeth gritted. She knew he was right. The next time she lost a fight with the Chameleon Man, the alien, would be the last.

**To be continued…**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five.**

Seras was patrolling the motor pool for the third night in a row, and was beginning to wonder if the creature had decided an assault on the Hellsing Manor wasn't worth the risk. Drug dealers and cultists were one thing, but a small army of trained soldiers was another.

She had begun to think of the creature as a hunter. It's mode of combat and desire to take trophies seemed to fit with that thought. A wise hunter, Seras thought, wouldn't go charging in to a den of lions looking for a fight. She sighed, and wondered how many nights she would be cooped up in the compound before she was sent out to deal with a rogue vampire. That would be when she next time encountered the creature, she was sure of it.

"Bored?" said a voice behind her. She turned to see Alucard standing there.

"A little," she said, wondering what he wanted.

"A little bird told me you should wander over by the ammunition shed. Hurry, the two men guarding it are two of my favorites. I would hate to see them taken off the roster."

She ran past him and out the door. His words from a few nights ago rang in her ears, and while her two eyes were open wide and searching, the eye doing the work was invisible, and in the center of her forehead.

The two soldiers guarding the front door of the ammunition shed, a tall, curved building, looked at her with some concern. "Be on alert," she said. "I thought I saw something."

They looked at each other and shrugged. "What did you see?" said the one called Harris, standing on the left.

She looked around with all of her senses and saw nothing. Feeling foolish, she kept acting as though she was looking. "I, uh…never mind," she said.

Alucard and his jokes, she thought, walking back towards the motor pool. He truly was a horrible monster when she thought about it, playing pranks when lives were at stake.

She heard a wet splat followed by "Oh my God!" and felt stupid. She turned. Harris was dead and there was a red, dripping stain on the door of the ammunition shed behind where he had been standing. The other guard, Thompson, was looking around frantically.

"Get under cover!" Seras shouted. "Raise the alarm!"

Thompson pulled out his radio and began speaking emergency codes into it as he backed up, still looking at the tops of sheds and the perimeter wall. Seras saw something move behind him and watched as his chest seemed to explode. Two metal blades stuck out from his ribs as he was lifted off the ground and thrown at Seras.

She sidestepped Thompson's body and concentrated. She couldn't see the creature, not really, but she knew exactly where it was and how its body was positioned. "Not this time," she said, raising her rifle. She fired a three-round burst at the thing's heart, but knew as she squeezed the trigger it was rolling forward beneath the bullets.

She bound backwards in time to avoid being stabbed with its claw weapon as it came up out of its roll. She fired and heard her bullets ping off the thing's helmet. Suddenly, her legs were kicked out from beneath her and she landed hard on her buttocks.

Knowing she was now under the creature or at least level with its chest, she fired again. Green fluid sailed through the air as the monster's camouflage system crackled, giving her a brief view of its outline. She had shot it in the arm as it rolled away to avoid being hit, and was now getting to its feet.

Seras fired again, hitting the thing in the back of the leg. It stumbled forward, but spun around like a discus thrower, sending something at her head. She brought her rifle up to block and caught the metal disc the thing had thrown with the rifle's forearm.

The weapon had gone in deep and she could see where the barrel had been dislodged. Firing the weapon would likely make it blow up in her face, so she dropped it and ran at the staggered monster.

She dove through the air to tackle it from behind, but it spun in time to catch her. She landed on top of it and held on. It was strong and her frame didn't carry much weight. They tussled, and finally Seras was able to dive her knee into the thing's stomach, allowing her to free her right hand.

Punching the creature hard in the chest, she felt her knuckles crack over a metal plate. The camouflage system crackled and shut off. Not feeling the pain, Seras, now enraged, began sending blows to the thing's helmet, knocking its head back into the concrete. She punched the unconscious creature several more times and felt its grip on her go slack.

Teeth clenched, she grabbed the helmet by the jaw and pulled back, eager to know what her enemy looked like.

She didn't like what she saw.

Its skin was a pale, brownish yellow, almost scaly in some place. The thing had a wide, high forehead, with thick antenna-like appendages that might be mistaken for dreadlocks on a human. At the bottom of its forehead was its most human feature, a pair of closed eye lids. One was half open, and she could see that aside from the yellow iris, it wasn't much different from a human eye.

Its mouth filled her with revulsion. It appeared to be a wide, toothy hole fenced in by a set of four mandibles, two that came down near the cheeks and two from the lower jaw. The entire thing made Seras think of a spider crossed with some sort of reptile.

Seras rarely cursed and almost never cursed strongly. Almost.

"Ugly mother fucker," she said, shaking her head.

The creature's eyes shot open and their gazes locked. She got the sense it was surprised that it had been beat, but wasn't altogether disappointed.

"Ugly mother fucker," it said in a garbled voice, its mouth not meant to speak English.

Seras punched it even as it struck her. The blow it sent was powerful enough to send her flying backward where she rolled for a few feet. The blow had been to her ribs, and she slowly stood up. Now she heard the alarm blaring and the sound of rushing feet.

Cries of "What the hell is it?" and "Is it a vampire?" could be heard as two guard teams surrounded the creature.

Seras expected them to begin firing, but no one did. Perhaps the novelty of it held them at bay, she didn't know. As she looked at it lying there on its back, breathing hard, she suddenly wondered herself if it should be killed, or at least not until it answered some questions.

"Victoria, orders?" one of the guard captains said. Sir Integra would likely be out shortly whether the scene was secure or not, but Seras needed to make a decision. Hellsing had no protocols for taking prisoners, as they didn't take any. "Hold your fire," she said.

She got up and walked over to the wide perimeter that had been formed around the creature by the soldiers. No one present was a stranger to bizarre sights, but none had seen anything quite like the creature lying on the ground, breathing hard and bleeding green, almost florescent, blood.

It raised one of its arms to its face, and with its other hand began to tap something on its wrist. "What the hell is it doing?" the captain that had spoken to her said.

The thing stopped and its arms fell to its sides. Its chest began to heave as the sound of laughter welled up from its throat. Hideous, entirely too human, laughter.

Seras shouted for everyone to get back at the same time the captain shouted fire. The thing's body was immediately riddled with bullets, but Seras's sixth sense told her the danger was still present.

She was only a few meters away when the explosion hit. She felt a wave of heat strike her in the back and lift her up. She sailed through the air for what felt like a long time before striking a perimeter wall and breaking more than a few bones.

*******

Seras thought if she and Alucard were normal soldiers, they would surely have been fired, or even executed. She thought she might die while sitting in a chair in the basement being spoken to by Sir Integra.

Integra hadn't shouted as much as Seras thought she might. It was clear she was beyond angry. Seras and Alucard sat quietly and listened as Integra systematically tore them to pieces. Seras was informed that her continued existence at Hellsing was entirely the result of her having been turned into a vampire by Alucard, who was himself no more than a rabid attack dog only kept around because he was too expensive to destroy.

The worst part was that Seras felt Integra was right. Over a dozen men had died because she hesitated to kill her enemy. No, they had died because of her pride. Alucard could have taken the creature out before it killed anyone, but she had to be one to settle up.

Neither had mentioned their arrangement to Integra, but Seras thought she suspected it anyway.

"One more slip like this," Integra said, "and I will have to seriously reconsider using either of you two in normal operations. Hellsing got along fine before you two and it can continue without, if need be. In fact, you're both going on suspension. I don't even want you on guard duty."

Alucard was quiet. Seras could sense he wasn't happy, but couldn't envision him complaining. To her shock, it was her who spoke. "Sir," she said.

Integra said nothing. She only looked at Seras.

"Did…did we ever find out what it was? You mentioned incidents…"

"Yes, our contacts in the CIA have spoken with us on the matter," Integra said, pausing a moment. Seras thought that would be it, but she continued. "The CIA believes what you encountered was an extraterrestrial. Based on testimony gathered after the incident in Los Angeles, it's believe the creatures are…intergalactic hunters. They come here periodically to hunt humans in much the same way as we would go on a safari. The theory is that they are attracted by high temperatures and violence."

Alucard made a brief chuckle, but Seras was left speechless, her mouth agape. "Oh my God," she finally said. "Aliens!?"

"It's none of your concern," Integra said. "Based on the conversations I've had with the CIA and other intelligence agencies, the actual threat posed by the creatures is minimal. A dozen people may be killed once every ten years or so, and there's not much we can do about them anyway. The CIA's interest in them likely stems more from a desire to recover their technology, not put a stop to their activities."

"That's horrible," Seras said. "Aliens are coming her from outer space and…"

"And the vampires that are already on this planet are causing more problems than aliens ever though of," Integra said. "Hellsing hunts vampires, not aliens. Leave the aliens to the Men in Black."

"The men in what?"

"Never mind," Integra said. "You're both suspended, remember? No more asking questions. In fact, go to your rooms, both of you."

Alucard stood. "Good evening, Sir Integra," he said, and melded into the floor.

Her head spinning, Seras walked out the door after saluting. Aliens, men in black, the CIA, incidents in Los Angeles…she was looking forward to returning to her simple life as a vampire hunting other vampires.

**The End. **


End file.
